so I have a very interesting video today on the most common mineral deficiency in the world. But before I dive in, I just wanted to say thank you for subscribing. Just today, I counted up the total number of subscribers on all languages because now my YouTube channel is translated into Arabic, Russian, Taiwanese, and many other languages. The total number of subscriptions is over 18 million subscribers. 18 million! I'm blown away. So thank you for subscribing. All right, now that that's out of the way, what is the most common mineral deficiency on the planet? Well, the answer is iron deficiency, and this is a very interesting topic because it's very common. It's a bit confusing. I'm going to try to simplify it, and it's extremely easy to fix. Let me run down first the symptoms if you're deficient in iron. So number one, you can have hair loss or hair thinning. You can get arrhythmias. Your heart goes out of rhythm. That could be an iron deficiency. You become fatigued, weakened. You can get dark circles.

underneath your eyes, restless leg syndrome. Okay, I used to have that difficulty sleeping. In fact, the arrhythmias could keep you up as well. You're on the cold side, your tolerance for cold is very low, your nails can become split very easily, your concentration is terrible, you can't focus, and you may experience fibromyalgia or achiness in muscles or joints. These set of symptoms can also mimic other problems like hypothyroidism, a B12 deficiency, a vitamin D deficiency, low testosterone, and even sleep apnea. Now, one of the challenges that people run into when they're trying to evaluate if they have iron deficiency is they go to the doctor, and sometimes their values, their numbers are normal. It shows normal iron, it shows normal hemoglobin, and the doctor might say, Well, you're fine. It could be something else, but it's definitely not an iron deficiency, when it could be. So, the thing you need to know about iron deficiency is there's another condition called non-anemic iron deficiency. So, that could

be like a pre-anemia type state, so you might not have a severe deficiency of iron, just it could be down somewhat, so they call that subclinical. Now, there's one thing that can actually help diagnose an iron deficiency, and that's ferritin. Okay, so let me just explain that. What is ferritin? Ferritin is a group of proteins, okay, a lot of different proteins that help bind with iron and store and release iron. So, ferritin acts as a buffer if you have too much iron, which is very, very dangerous, or you don't have enough iron. So, if your ferritin level is low, that can definitely be more of an indicator that you're iron deficient. However, there's other things that might create this false sense of higher levels of ferritin. For example, if you have an infection, okay, or you have inflammation in the body, your ferritin levels will be higher than they should be. So, that can really complicate things and make things very difficult to diagnose. Anytime you're looking at a deficiency, we should

also talk about excessive iron, so I'm going to touch on what to do if you have too much iron, the problems that could be associated with that, as well as we go through this now. I want to run into this next very interesting area, which is why you might be deficient in the first place. There are a lot of different reasons, but I just want to say that it's more common to have non-anemic iron deficiency than to have anemia. So, it's very common that this iron did not affect the blood yet, but in fact, a lot of other parts of your body. We need iron for other things than just building hemoglobin. Iron is needed to build thyroid hormones. Iron is needed to make dopamine. Iron is also needed for nerve impulses to work correctly. That's why you would have arrhythmias if you were deficient. So, there are many different reasons why you need iron, but I will say though, I've talked to quite a few patients who unfortunately did not find a doctor that can evaluate deep enough, especially

this iron problem, and the worst thing a doctor can do is tell you it's all in your head. That is the wrong diagnosis when people have these symptoms, and you're told it's all in your head. Wow, talk about something that can really elevate your cortisol and piss you off, but I hear it all the time. So, you really need to find a doctor that's a good evaluator that can dig deep and help assess different levels of this problem. But I want to give you a lot of information to think with, so you can sometimes even help your doctor guide them into a certain area, especially the reason why you're deficient in the first place. So, number one is that you're not consuming enough iron from your diet. That can occur if you're a vegan or even a vegetarian because the most available form of iron is the heme iron, okay? And that's in animal products like red meat, liver, seafood, etc. The type of iron you get from plants is non-heme, and that is not easily absorbed.

In fact, you're going to absorb 10 times less iron from plants like spinach. But iron is also high in oxalates, which can block the absorption of iron. So, let me go through the list. So, number one, it could come from not consuming enough iron in your diet. Okay, number two, having inflammation in the body. Inflammation in any part of your digestive system, whether it's in the stomach (gastritis) or in the intestines. Okay, because if there's inflammation in those parts, your ability to absorb iron goes down significantly. All right, the next one would be stress. The more stress you have, the more trauma that you have (surgeries, for example, which is a trauma). All these things can inhibit your ability to absorb iron. Also, a loss of blood, whether you're bleeding or you donate blood, or you have an ulcer, or let's say, for example, you have, I don't know, some type of polyp in your colon that you're bleeding from, and you're experiencing a loss of blood. Another common cause of low iron in your blood.

especially if you're aging. Low stomach acids are okay. If you don't have enough acid in your stomach, you're not going to absorb iron and other minerals, which is very, very common. It's called either hypochlorhydria or achlorhydria. And the way that you would know that you have low stomach acid is you have indigestion, gas, or even GERD, heartburn, or acid reflux, or even menstruation. Another reason why you might be deficient in iron is you had a gastric bypass surgery. Okay, that can cause the deficiency because you're having less digestive organs to absorb iron. Also, athletes or people who exercise a lot can be deficient in iron because some of the iron that you have is stored in the muscle, and as you use your muscle, you use up the iron, and that could be one reason as well. All right, next one is antacids. Any medication that suppresses acids could cause an iron deficiency because we need that hydrochloric acid in the stomach to be able to absorb iron.

fibroids. Okay, if you have fibroids, that could be another reason why you're deficient in iron. Also, having a greater need for iron, like when you're pregnant or breastfeeding, or even a young child in the development needs, requires more iron. Also, people with eating disorders usually have an iron deficiency. Another thing that's very, very common as far as blocking iron is phytic acid. Now, that is in all the grains, the soils, the bread, the pasta, the cereal, crackers, biscuits, waffles. All of these grain carbohydrates have phytic acid, especially the whole grains. Okay, so if you consume those foods, that could be the reason why you're deficient in iron. But phytic acid is also in legumes, beans, as well as, like I said, grains. Now, there's another compound called tannins in tea and coffee that can block iron as well. So, if you're drinking tea all day long and a lot of coffee, you could be low in iron. Chocolate has certain polyphenols, which are phytonutrients, that can block iron. And of course

polyphenols are also in a lot of other things, like turmeric, for example. So, turmeric can actually lower your iron. Now, I'm not saying not to consume coffee or tea or turmeric, okay, or even chocolate. I'm just bringing up the awareness that that could contribute to a lessening amount of iron. But if you're consuming enough iron at the same time, you're going to be fine. Red wine, okay, red wine has polyphenols and even tannins that can block the absorption of iron. All right, another thing, polymorphism. What is that? That's something wrong with your genes. There's a mutation. You can get a DNA test. I got it done. I'm going to do a video on that because it's very fascinating. It's new information that can help you find your weaknesses within your genes so you can then do things about it, you know. And there's all sorts of, it's called epigenetic lifestyle things you can do with the diet or taking more of a certain nutrient. So, the reason I'm

bringing that up is that I tested positive for this one called MTHFR. It's a slightly different one which does affect iron. Um, so I'm bringing it up because um, the genetic defect affecting this Gene called MTHFR. It can cause you to have less iron as well as a B12 deficiency and a folate deficiency. And as you may or may not know, if you're low on B12, you can also be anemic as well, a different type of anemia. And folate is very, very important in building red blood cells. The point is there are genetic weaknesses that uh, go beyond just that Gene that can affect your ability to absorb iron. And if you're trying to fix this problem with working on all these other things and you don't know that there could be a genetic uh, weakness, then you can go round and round and round. So the solution if you have a mutation in your genes is just to take more and see if that doesn't handle it. And sometimes people don't just take enough or they

don't take it long enough to see the changes because sometimes it could take months to fix a severe deficiency. All right, another factor would be taking too much calcium or magnesium, yeah, or drinking a lot of milk. Calcium, as well as magnesium, can inhibit iron. All right, so I just want to bring that up. Also, infections. When you have an infection, your body will shut down the amount of iron available because this iron is kind of a competition between the pathogens and your microbes. So, your microbes know the pathogens can eat iron, and your microbes also can eat iron. So, they will kind of hog the iron so the pathogen doesn't get it, and that can leave you in a situation where you have low iron. So, if you even have a, let's say, a subclinical infection, whether it's Epstein-Barr virus or whatever, that could be why you're low in iron. And I already mentioned oxalates can block iron. So, oxalates are iron spinach, almonds, asparagus. Okay, so I gave you a long list of all the reasons why

you might be deficient in iron, and then, of course, you would correlate that with your blood tests to be able to see what's going on. As far as correcting an iron deficiency, I know people will take supplements, and they'll take elemental iron, they'll take different types, forms of iron, and I'm not saying that won't work, okay? But I always recommend trying to get your iron from food first. So, start consuming more red meat, liver, shellfish, okay? And also, try to identify why you're deficient in the first place. If it's low stomach acid, start taking apple cider vinegar or betaine hydrochloride to help the pH. So, you want to get to the root cause. And also, if you add vitamin C at the same time, like in a salad or sauerkraut, you can increase the absorption of iron. Now, one thing you could take as far as pills is take liver pills or another product. There's actually spleen pills you can get, that dehydrated spleen extract, that seems to

work really good as an iron supplement. Now realize if you're very deficient it could take weeks to um correct this. All right on the flip side let's say you have a condition called hereditary hemochromatosis. Okay this is a situation where your body is absorbing too much iron. So you have too much iron and this is the problem. Okay it could be very very toxic. I can create problems with your liver in your heart and your brain. So based on a blood test your doctor can determine if you have this a problem and now what you do about it. Well there's a couple things I would recommend. Start consuming distilled water. I would get a machine to make your own and so it's not in a plastic jug but a glass jug coming from stainless steel. Because distilled water can start to actually suck out some of the minerals. So just realize it'll it'll pull out other minerals too but you can then put the minerals back in that you want but not the iron one. Okay turmeric. Turmeric can act as a

chelator or something that binds that iron and can help pull it out of the body. Start consuming turmeric cocoa bean that can help because that has a lot of polyphenols that can help bind iron and definitely something like black tea would also help because it's higher in tannins which can help bind the iron. So basically we want to take the things that are inhibiting iron if you're deficient and start taking those because you have too much. Now there's another thing you could take. I mentioned phytic acid right. So you can actually take that as a supplement to help chelate iron or bind and remove iron from the body and you can get that in a form called ip6. Okay it's called ip6. That's basically phytic acid and you start taking that to help bind the iron and if it's really a problem and you want something stronger you can take something called EDTA. That's a very powerful chelator. So just realize you have to put back in those

minerals that your body really needs, and they're non-toxic. Okay, minus the iron. All right, I gave you a lot of information about iron. I think the next most important thing for you to learn more about would be on how to improve the digestive system, simply because there are so many things that can go wrong in the digestive tract that can affect not just iron but other nutrients. And I put that video up right here. Check it out.

The #1 Most Common Mineral Deficiency in the World

Dr. Eric Berg DC, age 59, discusses the truth about getting healthy and losing weight. Dr. Berg specializes in Healthy Ketosis and Intermittent Fasting. He is the director of Dr. Berg's Nutritionals, and a best-selling amazon.com author. 

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The #1 Most Common Mineral Deficiency in the World

The #1 Most Common Mineral Deficiency in the World

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